Five police officers, 13 year-old boy killed in Israeli attack on Gaza

An Israeli ⁠air ⁠strike has killed at least five police ⁠officers and a 13-year-old boy, Gaza police say, as Israel continues its attacks across the Gaza Strip despite the “ceasefire” in place.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City on Saturday, said that the police officers were killed on the spot, and according to sources at al-Shifa Hospital, at least one civilian on a nearby street was also killed. At least 10 others were wounded.

In a statement, the Gaza police directorate said two missiles had hit a police post in the at-Twam area in northern Gaza.

“This is not an isolated incident, it’s part of the pattern that the Israeli military, not only since the ceasefire started, but also before that, we see in a pattern of deliberate targeting of police, local security personnel and law enforcement structures across Gaza,” Mahmoud said.

The missile strike on a police post comes as the 10,000-strong police force in Gaza has emerged as ⁠a sticking point in talks ⁠to advance United States President Donald Trump’s plan for Gaza.

The war that Israel launched following the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas was halted by a ceasefire on October 10, 2025, but the Israeli military has carried out almost daily attacks on Gaza since then and maintains a strict security regime.

Israel’s genocidal war on the enclave has now killed at least 72,775 Palestinians, with 883 people killed since the ceasefire came into effect.

The bodies of eight Palestinians, along with 29 wounded people, arrived at hospitals across Gaza in the past 48 hours, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

A ‘power vacuum’

The attacks on Gaza’s police force further threaten the distribution of aid while the Palestinian enclave continues to struggle with a humanitarian crisis.

Israel has placed severe restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza even as the ceasefire was supposed to ramp up the amount of supplies entering the Palestinian enclave.

“This is part of an effort to further plunge the Gaza Strip into further chaos, as well as dismantle whatever is left of the civilian order,” Mahmoud said, adding that it was worsening a power vacuum.

The strikes make it even more difficult to secure aid convoys to the areas most in need and “increase the possibility of hijacking and looting”, he said.

Meanwhile, in recent days, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has reported that Palestinian children in Gaza are suffering from an increase in skin infections due to the surge in pests, including rats, lice, fleas and mites.